A founding member of critically acclaimed Scottish band The Delgados, Emma Pollock co-wrote and shared lead vocal duties on the 5 studio albums the band released between 1995 and 2005. 2000’s album ‘The Great Eastern’ was awarded a Mercury nomination.
In 1995 Emma co-founded influential Glasgow record label Chemikal Underground and in 1997 co-founded recording studio Chem19 with the band, both of which continue to run today.
Following The Delgados’ split in 2005, Emma became a solo artist and has since released 3 solo albums; ‘Watch The Firewoks’ (4AD) in 2007, ‘The Law Of Large Numbers’ (Chemikal Underground) in 2010 and ‘In Search of Harperfield’ (Chemikal Underground) in 2016 which was nominated for the SAY Award 2016.
In addition to The Delgados and subsequent solo work, she has also taken part in many collaborative projects; most notably The Burns Unit featuring amongst others King Creosote & Karine Polwart, which resulted in 2010’s debut album for the band ‘Sideshow’ and a ‘Later With Jools Holland’ appearance.
2010 also saw the formation of The Fruit Tree Foundation with Rod Jones (Idlewild), a project commissioned by the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival to promote awareness of mental health issues within the music industry by producing an album of new material written by 8 Scottish songwriters.
Emma has also worked with Glasgow organisation Vox Liminis, which arranges songwriting workshops in Scottish prisons and released its debut album of original material ‘Not Known At This Address’ in May 2018.
During the pandemic in 2021 she worked as part of the Hen Hoose collaboration setup by artist MALKA, writing a song with Pippa Murphy. The album Equaliser, showcasing work exclusively written and produced by Scottish female/non-binary artists was released earlier this year.
The fourth solo album is well underway…